


Drop a bomb (gently)

by zvi



Series: Cristina Doesn't Want To Be Alone [1]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Character of Color, Other, Remixed, grey's exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-01
Updated: 2007-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvi/pseuds/zvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I miss you. Er, by you, I mean all of you. Not that you aren't part of—."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drop a bomb (gently)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lauren (chickwith_stick) in the 2007 Grey's Exchange. Takes place between seasons two and three.
> 
> [Surviving The Blitz (Crash, Burn, Get Up &amp; Dance Mix)](http://the-willow.insanejournal.com/714780.html) by WitchWillow.  
> [How To Return From Self-Imposed Exile (Reformation Remix)](http://community.livejournal.com/remixredux08/34032.html) by Mardia.

George's marriage broke up a month after Cristina's failed to start.

Cristina found this out when she woke up from a Meredith-and-Burke-induced haze.

It was Izzie's fault, of course. "Ha! Ha! Not that I want George to be miserable, but I told him. I told _everyone_. That woman was a big mistake. I'm just glad she didn't get pregnant. That would have been a nightmare." Yes, it was Izzie's fault that Cristina found out about the divorce. George didn't hang around Meredith's house (too much Izzie) or the hospital (too much 'failed-the-most-important-test-of-my-life' trauma.) These were the only places Cristina went (Joe's bar had way, way too much liquor in it for Cristina to feel comfortable after the wreck she'd made of herself on the first day of her not-a-honeymoon), so Cristina mostly didn't think about George.

Except Izzie said, "I think I'll bring him muffins."

To which Meredith replied, "I don't think he needs someone to help him _celebrate_, Izzie."

And Cristina found herself saying, "I can take him muffins. I don't pity him. And I won't crow about it, either."

Meredith and Izzie were exchanging a look of dubiousness, but Alex just said, "She handled the 'dead dad' thing, ok. Right?"

Which was how Cristina found herself at the door of a cheap motel room in a part of town she'd never visited to offer sympathy for the end of a marriage she hadn't even realized was on the rocks.

"Hey." George opened the door. "Izzie?" He pointed with his chin towards the basket.

Cristina nodded. "I don't even know what the hell's in here. Chocolate. And stuff."

"Good. Chocolate's good." He stepped back and let her in.

"There may also be milk."

George shrugged. "I have some, if there's not."

Which prompted Cristina to look around, because motels don't usually have refrigerators. But this wasn't a motel room as Cristina understood the term. Oh, it had the beige-cream-wheat-gold ugly wallpaper and drab institutional tan carpeting she'd expected, but there were also a table and a couple of chairs beside the normal queen-sized bed, and a sort of efficiency kitchen was next to the television. "Are you _living_ here? This is not a good place, George."

And she saw George's spine stiffen. "I'm doing a crazy amount of research for Professor Vishkaran, I'm looking for a real research fellowship somewhere closer to my mother, and, God help me, I've been talking to the University of Washington's PA program. I haven't had time and I don't have the money to look for a good place."

Cristina opened her mouth and closed it before she said something awful about being a physician's assistant. She was here, after all, to help George feel better, not worse. "Your mom's in Tacoma, right? I know some people who are doing residencies up there; do you want me to—"

"No. Thank you." George sat on the bed, made a vague handwave towards the table.

She put her basket on the table. Looked inside and silently thanked Izzie. "Milk and plates and napkins and cups."

"Is Izzie being…?" George shrugged, looked at his shoes.

Cristina pulled out the brownies and the carrot cake muffins and the zucchini bread. "Yeah. A lot." She put a slice of the bread on a plate, poured a half of a glass of milk, and brought it over to him. "Sorry about Callie. I know you love her."

George took the plate and the cup and said, "I, um, never said. But sorry. About you and Burke. And thanks."

Cristina nodded but watched him carefully. She figured he could use a laugh, and she knew she could. She waited until he took a swig of the milk to say, "Thanks. But Meredith fucked me through the worst of it." And she would have laughed at his spit take if she'd thought to get out of the line of fire.

George looked at her and laughed. "You did that on purpose, so I'm not sorry." He took a bite, carefully chewed and swallowed. "Seriously?"

She finished wiping her face with a napkin before she replied. "Seriously."

"I would ask how I didn't hear about this, but I mostly talk to Bailey or Callie. So, I guess I know."

Cristina shrugged. "You're the only person I've told. I'm not sure anybody else knows. I mean, it's not like we're dating or anything. It's just that Meredith got drunk one time when we were mending my broken heart."

"And wildly inappropriate sex followed."

Cristina shrugged again, then looked around the motel room one more time. "You want to move into my place?"

George choked on bread this time. Cristina got up, prepared to give him the Heimlich, but he waved her off and kept coughing until a glob of wet zucchini got her right in the nose.

"That's disgusting, George! Thank God, Izzie was generous with the napkins."

George huffed, "That wasn't on purpose?" and started giggling through his coughs.

Cristina took a chair, and a brownie, and her own glass of milk. "No, it was not. I'm serious. This isn't a shit hole, but it's not good. And Burke's apartment is a little nicer than I can afford, even with, uh—."

George rolled his eyes. "Even with your pay raise as a resident."

"You pay me half what you're paying here, clean the living room and kitchen, and do the grocery shopping, and I'll come out way ahead."

"Way ahead? From _half_ what I'm paying here?"

"And dropping the maid service." She cleared her throat and took another bite of brownie. "It was Burke's maid service. I just haven't canceled it."

He rolled his eyes. "And I won't," he shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands, "make the thing you have with Meredith weird?"

"The thing I have with Meredith is already weird. And it's not a thing, anyway. It's more like, like maintenance fucking."

George's mouth dropped open, and then he closed it abruptly. "Your mind is twisty and strange and I don't actually want to know what goes on there." He shook himself, finished off the zuchinni bread. "Fifty-fifty on the groceries?"

"Yeah."

"Why?" He sat back, hands behind him on the bedcover, legs stretched out almost to the table where she sat. "For real this time."

"I don't like living alone. Anymore. And the thing with Meredith is already weird." She picked up another brownie, put it down, broke off a corner. "McDreamy's been sniffing around again lately."

George's smile was only sort of there, like the Mona Lisa's. "Dr. Sheppard strikes again." The snorting sounds which followed were only sort of laughter.

"If he weren't an amazing neurosurgeon, I would put him down."

George nodded. "Yes. To both parts. Toss me a brownie."

She did. She waited for him to finish it off, which took about three bites. "So?"

"If we go fifty-fifty on utilities, then yeah."

"Seriously?"

George nodded again. "I miss you. Er, by you, I mean all of you. Not that you aren't part of—." He took a breath. "I miss Seattle Grace and everybody. And it's not like after graduation, where you're all gone across the country. I'm the one who's not there. Your place is like a, a halfway house."

"We're not drugs, George." Cristina rolled her eyes.

"You really kind of are," said George.


End file.
